A conventional Power Distribution Unit (PDU) is an assembly of electrical outlets (also called receptacles) that receive electrical power from a source and distribute the electrical power to one or more separate electronic appliances. Each such unit has one or more power cords plugged in to one or more of the outlets. PDUs also have power cords that can be directly hard wired to a power source or may use a traditional plug and receptacle connection. PDUs are used in many applications and settings such as, for example, in or on electronic equipment racks. One or more PDUs are commonly located in an equipment rack (or other cabinet), and may be installed together with other devices connected to the PDU such as environmental monitors, temperature and humidity sensors, fuse modules, or communications modules that may be external to or contained within the PDU housing. A PDU that is mountable in an equipment rack or cabinet may sometimes be referred to as a Cabinet PDU, or “CDU” for short.
A common use of PDUs is supplying operating power for electrical equipment in computing facilities, such as data centers or server farms. Such computing facilities may include electronic equipment racks that comprise rectangular or box-shaped housings sometimes referred to as a cabinet or a rack and associated components for mounting equipment, associated communications cables, and associated power distribution cables. Electronic equipment may be mounted in such racks so that the various electronic devices are aligned vertically one on top of the other in the rack. One or more PDUs may be used to provide power to the electronic equipment. Multiple racks may be oriented side-by-side, with each containing numerous electronic components and having substantial quantities of associated component wiring located both within and outside of the area occupied by the racks. Such racks commonly support equipment that is used in a computing network for an enterprise, referred to as an enterprise network.
As mentioned, many equipment racks may be located in a data center or server farm, each rack having one or more associated PDUs. One or more such data centers may serve as data communication hubs for an enterprise. Furthermore, many PDUs include network connections that provide for remote control and/or monitoring of the PDUs. Such PDUs may include power control relays that may be actuated by a remote user to interrupt power to one or more of the outputs of a PDU. Furthermore, such PDUs may include the ability to report information related to the PDU to a user or system located remotely from the PDU. For example, a PDU may report a total amount of power being provided by the PDU to a power management system, which may monitor such information and provide such information to one or more users of the power management system, such as network administrators. PDUs may monitor one or more of several different parameters related to the power provided through the PDU, such as current, voltage, and/or some other power-related parameter. Many PDUs have local displays that may be used to provide information to a user. In some cases, additional information and/or functionality not available through the local display may be desired for a user of a user device (or smart device) that is located adjacent to the PDU. Additionally, in some wireless communications environments, wireless devices broadcast network information to facilitate discovery. Accordingly, a user device that wants to connect to a particular PDU needs to know the network identification information associated with that PDU to establish communications. Unfortunately, identifying a particular PDU from any number of PDUs in a datacenter based solely on broadcasted network information can be an arduous task.
Furthermore, in one traditional system, information from one or more PDUs may be transmitted wirelessly to a gateway that may collect PDU information and provide such information to a user, such as an operations user in a data center. Such systems may include an RF tag that is coupled with a serial port of a PDU, for example, and may receive information from a PDU and transmit the information wirelessly to the gateway. Such a system, however, does not provide a user adjacent to a PDU with the ability to perform any configuration or related functions with a PDU, and does not provide capability to provide interactions between a user of a device and a PDU. An example of a system is an RF tag and related system provided by RF Code of Austin Tex.